Initially conceived as "a goof" that took the college basketball tournament model and filled brackets with books, the ToB has proved both long-lasting and inspirational. While it has been followed by dozens of book-bracket imitators that set up all kinds of reading competitions -- children's books, books about Los Angeles -- the race for the Rooster remains central.

Maybe I'm biased: I'm a former judge, and I adore its freewheeling criticism, accompanied by play-by-play commentary by Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner. It's been 10 years since ToB began -- a near eternity in Internet time -- and it's still going strong.

Also announced today are the readers who will be judges, a list that includes our own Hector Tobar. Below are the books that are in the running for the Rooster.

"At Night We Walk in Circles" by Daniel Alarcón"The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton"The Tuner of Silences" by Mia Couto"The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert"How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" by Mohsin Hamid"The Dinner" by Herman Koch"The Lowland" by Jhumpa Lahiri"Long Division" by Kiese Laymon"The Good Lord Bird" by James McBride"Hill William" by Scott McClanahan"The Son" by Philipp Meyer"A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki"Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell"The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt"The People in the Trees" by Hanya Yanagihara[Winner of the Pre-Tournament Playoff Round]

Pre-Tournament Playoff Round"Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson"Woke Up Lonely" by Fiona Maazel

"Harold Ross: Founder of the New Yorker. ... He loved to give the impression of being just a country boy. You know: Very simple, unaffected man. And his jaw was always dropping, and he always listened like a green reporter out on his first interview listening to a speaker. But he really had a brain...

Photographer Carol M. Highsmith is in the midst of a multi-year project to traveling around America, capturing how we live. Her collection at the Library of Congress contains more than 25,000 images, all in the public domain. Through her lens, her subjects take on a sparkling beauty, from the extravagantly...

A burst of thunderstorm activity across the Chicago-area in mid-afternoon Sunday resulted in multiple injuries and a death at an event in west suburban Wood Dale, the collapse of a dome in northwest suburban Rosemont and the temporary evacuation of the music festival Lollapalooza in Grant Park...

Now there are two: Zimbabwe accused a Pennsylvania doctor on Sunday of illegally killing a lion in April, adding to the outcry over a Minnesota dentist the African government wants to extradite for killing a well-known lion named Cecil in early July.